Altered
by The Black Sun's Daughter
Summary: When they return through the anomaly, more has changed then they realised.
1. Altered

"I'm glad you decided to stay," Claudia murmured, stroking her thumb across his knuckles as they watched the anomaly.

Nick Cutter smiled at her warmly, squeezed her hand, then pulled her into his side, arm settling around her shoulders as naturally as if it belonged there. She was just the right height to fit beneath his arm and snuggle into his shoulder. "How could I go, after the almost-farewell that you gave me?" he murmured back, smiling a little wider as a fetching pink blush coloured her cheeks.

"Do you think that Connor and Stephen are alright? With Helen, I mean?" she asked softly, leaning her head against his shoulder. Nick had decided not to go with, but Stephen had protested that someone from the research team ought to accompany the soldiers. Connor, surprisingly enough, had been first to volunteer, on the strength of his database giving him the greatest knowledge of any Permian-era creature; given that not a one of them would trust Connor with a potato gun, Stephen went with to be acting bodyguard for the geek, though begrudgingly and only after Nick had given him a very pointed look behind Connor's back.

"Of course. Ryan's with them, they've got the entire protective detail too. Helen's scary, but she's not _that_ scary," he soothed, tightening his arm around her imperceptibly in comfort.

"Maybe _she_ isn't, but those little...devil spawn creatures surely are," Claudia murmured back.

If Nick had blinked, he'd have missed it. The anomaly shivered, visibly trembled, and for a moment warped out of shape and paled to almost silver before returning to its normal gold-white glow. "What was _that?"_ Claudia asked in awe.

"No idea," he replied stiffly, striding closer and consulting the compass that Connor had left with him to monitor the strength of the anomaly. The magnetic field was still going completely haywire, it wasn't closing anytime soon...so what had _that_ been about? Shaking his head, he pocketed the compass once more and returned to Claudia's side, preferring her company to that of the soldiers', Lester's, or Abby's. She once more resumed her position tucked against his side, and he breathed in the soft, faint scent of whatever perfume she'd put on that morning.

Not even five minutes after the bizarre fluctuation, the anomaly began to distort in a way that signaled something coming through. Nick's arm tightened around Claudia, and he could hear the soft metallic clicks of gun safeties being switched off.

Abruptly, Connor and Stephen came staggering out of the anomaly, practically tumbling head-over-heels on the rain-soft ground, closely followed by a tall ginger man that was half-carrying Ryan, who was soaked in blood and pale as death, then another soldier that Nick had never seen before, carrying a shotgun, and then Helen herself.

As medics rushed forward to tend to Ryan, Nick abruptly noticed that not just people had come through the anomaly. Ryan's free hand was curled tightly in the scruff of a red and white Irish setter, who was panting and shaking beside him. A massive steely grey bird of prey was perched on the mysterious, shotgun-wielding soldier's armoured shoulder, a lean and gangly canine stood beside the ginger bloke, a small spotted cat was tucked beneath Stephen's arm, and a dark furry shape was pressed to Connor's chest. And curled around Helen's neck was a long, greenish-gold scaled body, the serpent's head resting in the base of her throat.

"Okay, that went...a little rougher than expected," Connor panted.

"Yeah, no fucking kidding, Temple," spat the soldier. "Everyone alright?"

"Helen, the hell is going on?" Nick demanded, staring at her in wide-eyed bafflement, or rather, at the snake which had made itself at home around her neck.

The woman he once knew as his wife looked around the clearing at them, the assorted soldiers, and something in her face changed. There was a flicker of fear in her eyes, apprehension, but also one of intrigue, excitement. Before he could ask again or any of them could demand an answer, she turned and ran through the anomaly just as it sputtered out and vanished.

"Fuck!" the ginger swore loudly, and the dog at his side growled.

Stephen sat up, still holding the spotted cat in the crook of his arm, and he twisted to look at Connor. "You good?" he asked, and there was a softness in his voice that hadn't been there before, a note of true concern.

The geek smiled broadly, a true smile, too, not the slightly nervous one he usually wore whenever Stephen was around. That was a full, dimpled, crooked smile that could've powered the National Grid. He nodded, arms around the dark bundle of fur still pressed to his chest.

"What the hell is going on here? Who are you two? What happened to Captain Ryan?" Lester demanded in his whipcrack, no-nonsense voice.

As if suddenly remembering everyone else, Connor, Stephen, and the two strangers turned to face them instead of the spot where the anomaly had been. And just like Helen, their faces changed in an instant, except on their expressions, it was much more obvious. First sharp disbelief, then shock, then disgust, then sick terror and apprehension. Even Stephen looked about ready to be sick, and he was clutching the spotted cat to his chest with the one arm, the other gripping Connor's hand as if the animal and the geek were the only two things keeping him tethered to Earth. "Where's...where's your dæmons?" Stephen asked, his voice weak and dizzy.

"Where's our _whats?"_ Nick asked in bafflement, getting more and more confused by the second.

"Oh God. Oh God, oh God," Connor moaned quietly, beginning to visibly shake. The ginger man muttered out another few choice expletives, kneeling down to wrap both arms around the lanky creature that Nick recognised wasn't a dog at all but a coyote, which leaned into him and whimpered like a common household pet. The soldier had lifted a hand, fingers buried in the large bird's feathers, shotgun hanging limp at his side.

All the while, the medics had been trying to catch the Irish setter, as it refused to get away from Ryan and the soldier would moan if it went too far from him, one bloodied hand grasping blindly at the air. Suddenly one made another lunge towards the dog, nearly catching it by the scruff. Connor scrambled to his feet then, pushing the medic away from the dog, and the before unrecognisable bundle of dark fur in his lap suddenly reformed itself into a large, snarling wolverine that bristled until nearly all its fur stood erect, teeth bared in a ferocious snarl. But then the wolverine's muzzled moved and a woman's voice issued forth from it, thick with fury and a Yorkshire accent. "Try that again, and you'll be a dead motherfucker."

All the medics backed away with expletives of their own, staring at the animal in disbelief, doubting what their own ears had just heard. Seizing the opportunity of their distraction, the setter bounded over to Ryan's prone form and lay in the gap between his arm and his side, muzzle resting on his chest. And they all heard the dog sigh, also with a woman's voice, "Oh, Tommy, we've gotten ourselves in a right mess now."

Nick sat down heavily on the ground where he stood, staring at the people that'd come through the anomaly, feeling like Alice Liddell taking a tumble down the rabbithole to have tea with the Hatter and the March Hare.

Stephen looked back at him, and though it was the same face that Nick had been seeing for the past eight years of his life, he felt that he was looking at a completely different person now. "Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore," the lab tech sighed, and the spotted cat in his arms nodded, an unmistakably human gesture.

Apparently things had changed more than any of them first realised.


	2. Bereft

As Stephen and Connor spoke to Lester, Nick couldn't focus on the conversation as he was too busy gazing at the spotted cat which sat neatly on the tabletop towards the end of the table, closer to the door; the wolverine lay beneath the chair, head on her paws. Neither animal went more than a few feet from the two men at any given time, and whenever someone made the suggestion that they leave the animals in a kennel whilst this…issue…was resolved, they both vehemently protested, almost to the point of needing security.

The cat was roughly the size of a domestic cat, maybe a little larger, but there was a sleekness to it that suggested a wild animal rather than domestic. It was a light, tawny brown-gold in colour, marked with darker rosettes and spots, and its golden eyes seemed almost too big for its head, round and full of an alien intelligence. It sat neatly with its tail curled around its paws like an Egyptian cat goddess awaiting tribute, ears twitching and turning, picking up on sounds inaudible to humans. Nick could see no evidence of a collar, not even the usual roughed fur around the neck that might suggest one had been present before. As he tried to puzzle out just what had happened to his world, the cat turned its sleek head towards him. Its muzzle moved, and a cool, velvety female voice said, "Didn't your mother ever tell you it's rude to stare?"

Nick blinked hard, then replied, "Not every day I see a talking wildcat in the Home Office."

From beneath the chair, the ball of dark fur rumbled lowly. "She isn't a _wildcat,_ she's a margay."

"In the Forest…Stephen asked where our…our dæmons were. Is that what you are? A dæmon?" Nick queried, ignoring the fact that he'd just been corrected by a wolverine.

"Yes. As is Ashildr, Nike, Brinley, and Landurmilla," the margay replied, then her ears lay back a moment, a decidedly sad look passing through her eyes. "I am Maren."

He could only suppose that those were the names of the other animals. Or dæmons. Whatever. "So what exactly _is_ a dæmon?" he asked.

The margay – Maren – flicked her ears and tapped one paw against the tabletop, a gesture Stephen himself often made when thinking over his words before speaking. "I am…Stephen. I am his innermost self, expressed outside of his body. I am his soul. There is no me without him, and there is no him without me. We are one entity inside two bodies. And Ashildr is Connor's dæmon, she is his soul." She dipped her muzzle slightly in indication of the wolverine, who had jumped up onto the chair and was watching Nick closely.

"You're his soul?" Nick echoed in disbelief.

"Yes. And where we are from, there is not a human alive that does not have a dæmon. Which is why, when we came through the anomaly, we were…frightened. To see someone _without_ a dæmon is…." She trailed off, at a loss for parallels to draw.

Ashildr spoke up then, standing on her hind legs and placing both forepaws on the tabletop. "It's like seeing someone with their chest open and their heart gone. A person without a face. It's…not natural, it's _wrong_ and it's _terrifying,_ " she said, Maren nodding agreement.

"Well, in this…timeline, universe, whatever you'd call it, our souls are inside us. They're integrated in our bodies," Nick replied. Usually, he wouldn't have spoken of souls so easily and steadfastly, as his religious standing could be described as 'tentative' on a good day. He didn't believe in ghosts, and his belief in God wasn't always on firm ground, but it was kind of hard to argue the existence of the soul _with_ the physical form of one. "So it's not that we don't have one, it's just that we can't see them."

"Hmm." Maren seemed to contemplate that, her tail slowly swishing back and forth, ears twitching. "Well, then, if you do not have dæmons, then you must know that you must never, _ever_ touch any of us. It is the worst taboo imaginable, to touch another person's dæmon, as you would be in a most literal sense touching their soul. You mustn't. That is why Landurmilla ran from the medics who tried to grasp her, and why Ashildr became so protective. It is the barrier which nobody crosses."

Nick could understand that. Who would _want_ someone to touch their soul?

"And we cannot be very far from each other, a human and their dæmon. We are tethered together, and to pull on that tether causes us a terrible pain, both physically and emotionally. It is why neither of them could enter this building without us."

He made a quiet noise, arms folded across his chest as he thought over her words. It all seemed just far too strange for him, like something from a storybook or a fairytale. Talking animals which embodied a person's soul? No, thank you, he would much rather prefer to stay in the sane world. The sane world where holes in space-time allowed dinosaurs into modern-day London. Yeah. That one. A sudden thought struck him, and he asked, "Why are you female? I mean...shouldn't you be male, like Stephen?"

"No. The dæmons of men are female, and the dæmons of women are male. That's the way it's always been. Only very rarely are they of the same sex, and usually it is a sign of a gift, such as second sight," Maren explained, and as Cutter's mouth opened, she said, "No, we don't know why. That is how it has always been. We don't understand the workings of Dust, Nick."

"Dust?" he echoed. The way she said it, the silent capital letter tacked onto it, made it sound like it certainly wasn't the stuff that accumulated on undisturbed surfaces.

Ashildr jumped up onto the table, her claws scratching the glass surface; Lester would be pissed. Sitting beside Maren, she explained, "Dust is...well, it is an elementary particle. We're not entirely sure just _what_ it is, we simply know _of_ it. I suppose you can ascertain it to dark matter, except that it is conscious. Dust is what connects a person to their dæmon, and when people die, their dæmons become Dust. That's all I can accurately tell you, because I don't study Dust, I haven't the foggiest about the specifics. Some call it the consciousness of the universe, some say its a cosmic force, but I believe it all boils down to one thing: we don't really know what the hell it is."

Maren sighed heavily, her shoulders slumping, and her ears lay back for a moment as her eyes flicked to a spot just above Nick's shoulder. She shook her head. "I don't know how you can stand it. Being alone. Without her. How lonely you all must be..."

He glanced away, uncomfortable, and realised that everyone in the room had stopped talking and was listening to their conversation. Stephen hadn't turned around, but the line of his back was rigid, and Connor was staring fixatedly at the floor, hands in his pockets. Lester's face was solemn yet unreadable, wearing his professional's mask once more. Claudia had her fingertips pressed to her mouth, watching the interchange with fascination. "What was her name?" Nick asked at last, ignoring his 'audience.'

"Niala," said Ashildr quietly. "Her name was Niala."

The abrupt screech of a chair being shoved back made them all startle. Stephen stood up, hands on the table. "That's it for the day," he said, his voice hoarse. "We're going home. See you tomorrow." He held out an arm, and Maren bounded across the table, up his arm, and perched on shoulder, digging her claws into his jacket for balance. Without waiting for Lester's answer, he walked out. Connor followed after him; Ashildr jumped from the table and walked at his heels.

"Niala," he murmured softly. For some reason, he felt a distant, far off pang of longing, like the name had rang some long-forgotten bell of loss in the back of his mind.


	3. Connor

"We are screwed."

Connor flopped down on the sofa, limbs splayed out. Stephen sat in the armchair, watching with faint amusement as Ashildr rendered a throw pillow to little more than scraps of fabric and fluffy cotton bits, cursing a bitter albeit muffled blue streak all the while. The tracker had once mused that every bit of Connor's bad-temperedness, profanity, aggression, and rage had been transferred into Ashildr, and all of her sweetness, kind nature, soft words, and gentleness had been transferred to Connor. After all, there was little more dangerous or violent in the wild than the wolverine of the Northern Hemisphere.

Once the pillow was effectively neutralised, Ashildr flopped down amidst its remains in a fashion similar to Connor's, her limbs splayed out, dejected; Maren nuzzled her gently in a show of comfort.

"What are we going to do, Stephen?" Connor asked, lifting his head. When they left the Home Office, rather than go back to the flat with Abby, he chose to bunk with Stephen. The looks of surprise the decision got from the others suggested this world was different in ways other than the obvious. Not that he didn't like Abby, but the staring, the questions, would've been too much to handle at present. Right now, he didn't need any more questions. He needed someplace quiet and safe and peaceful where he could collect all his wildly careening thoughts, arrange them into some semblance of order, and figure out what the bloody hell they were going to do next. Becker and Quinn had gone to their respective flats – presuming they still lived in the same places – and he was grateful to find that Stephen's flat hadn't changed, except for a few small things, like Maren's climbing frame and cushion being missing. At least _that_ hadn't changed. "The whole world's gone wonky. Upside down, inside out, and backwards to boot. We've crossed into some parallel universe somehow, because of something we did on the other side of the anomaly."

"We'll be alright," Stephen murmured quietly.

Connor huffed out a breath, throwing an arm across his eyes, trying to catch his thoughts. They were slippery little things, like smoke or otters.

Fact: they were not home. Somehow, they had crossed into an alternate, parallel timeline where people – _shudder_ – didn't have dæmons.

Fact: insofar, only he, Stephen, Danny, Becker, Ryan, and Helen still had their dæmons. They were the ones that'd come directly through the anomaly.

Fact: something they'd done had caused the timeline shift. The anomaly was closed, and the odds of it recurring in such a way that allowed the to get home...minimal.

Fact: nobody in this timeline knew anything about dæmons, have never had them nor seen them before. Problematic, they didn't know about the taboos and etiquette attached.

He might have caught a few more, but another groan escaped him as he lamented, "We won't be able to go out in public anymore, Stephen! Nobody knows what our dæmons are, they'll call Animal Control. Or try to take them from us. We won't be able to get anywhere, because everywhere here has a 'no animals' rule and they'll just think our dæmons are animals, might try to _grab_ us. And we can't tell them otherwise without freaking _everyone_ out. We're under house arrest, basically."

"We're fucked," growled Ashildr as she seized another of the pillows that Connor had kicked off of the sofa. He would have to get her some rawhide or leather before she ended up ravaging every cushion in the flat. "Completely and utterly _fucked."_

"And Ryan...oh, God, the man's bedridden, half in shreds. How's he supposed to stop someone from manhandling Landurmilla?" he groaned in agony. Things were looking bleaker and bleaker for them. He rolled over onto his belly and contemplated smothering himself in the sofa cushions. Surely it could be done, if he pressed hard enough...

The armchair squeaked softly, muffled footsteps crossed the carpet, and then the sofa lurched violently under him. Connor let out a strangled yelp, flailing as he was deposited none-too-gently on the floor, nearly cracking his head on the coffee table as he did so. Ashildr growled as Maren snorted, and Connor flopped over onto his back to see Stephen towering over him, looking about a thousand miles tall from his prone position. The tracker put hands on his hips. "Our situation isn't the best one, I'll give you that, but that's about all the moaning I can take from you, Connor Temple. So here's what we're going to do. I'm famished, so I know you are, too. We're going to go in the kitchen, see if there's anything which is edible or can be made into an edible meal. If not we'll get takeaway. Then you're going to stop being so miserable and start putting that brilliant, stupid brain of yours to work thinking of a way to get us home, because if anyone could do it, you could. Got it?"

Connor folded both arms across his chest, no matter he probably looked ridiculous laying down like he was. "An' if I don't?"

"I'll send you back to Abby's," Stephen replied with a smirk.

He glared up at the tracker for a moment longer before muttering, "Bastard. Alright, help me up." He stuck up one hand; Stephen grasped his wrist and heaved him upright like he was a sawdust doll, the smarmy, fit bastard.

"Don't think this means you've won," Ashildr growled as she followed the two men into the kitchen.

Maren just twitched her tail and leapt up onto the countertop.

There wasn't much to be found in the cabinets. Apparently, the other version of Stephen was just as much of a "sandwiches and takeaway" kind of bloke as this one, but Connor did find the basics for a decent meal. He was actually a very good cook, because after his mum's health started to slide, it'd fallen to him to handle the household because his da was one of those people that could burn water. And he liked cooking, too. It was a science all on its own, various components forming a completely different yield. He glanced over his shoulder at Stephen, who had dropped any pretense of helping and was sat at the counter, looking through some of the mail he'd found. The git knew that finding him something else to do – like making them a decent supper – would distract Connor from their current predicament long enough to stop being all doom-and-gloom about it.

"Punks," Ashildr muttered from where she sat at his feet, leaning against his calves.

Connor nodded but also began thinking on something he'd noticed. All through the day, Cutter had been staring at them funny, like they were doing something very out of the ordinary, and he looked even more confused when Stephen offered to let Connor bunk over at his rather than go back to the flat with Abby. It wasn't just Cutter that looked at them funny, either. Abby had too, though she was more suspicious than anything, and Lester and Ms. Brown. He wondered if perhaps in this version of the timeline, he and Stephen still got on like oil and water.

"Supper's ready," he said, taking down two plates, which were still in the same place as always. As they sat to eat at the counter, Ashildr began gnawing at the leg of Connor's chair and Maren sat watching, shaking her head. A warm, gun-callused hand landed on the back of Connor's neck, and he sighed quietly, leaning into the touch.

"We'll be just fine," Stephen reiterated, leaning in to kiss the soft spot under his ear before sitting back and taking up his fork.

Maybe, just _maybe,_ Connor was starting to believe him. Maybe.


	4. Danny

"Not only no, but hell no. Get that thing away from me, Daniel."

Danny frowned as he faced down his dæmon, who had backed away from him and was now glaring at him with her yellow eyes, head low between her shoulders. "Brinley, don't think I won't sit on you," he cautioned.

"And don't think I won't bite your arse. I'm not wearing it."

"Unless you want to cause us a whole mess of easily avoided trouble on the way back to the flat, oh yes you will," he shot back.

She growled quietly at him, hackles lifting, but he saw the way her tail was tucked back against her legs and her ears were pressed back flat to her head, her fear like an itch on the inside of his skull. "It's _humiliating,_ Danny," she protested.

With a heavy sigh, the copper sat down on the floor, folding his legs beneath him. Lying in one large hand was a length of chain leash and a leather collar that one of these pen pushers had magically conjured up. The idea of putting a collar and leash on his dæmon, on his soul, made him feel nauseous in the worst way, not in a stomach-churning way, but in the way that his whole body felt ill and wrong on his bones. Brinley was just like him – rough and wild and free, despite their domesticated appearance. She wasn't ever meant to be chained, and he wasn't ever meant to be caged. "And you think that I'm _pleased_ with this arrangement?" he asked softly, the words sour in his mouth.

Brinley sighed herself, hackles lowering as she padded over to him, her claws _tack-tack_ ing on the tile floors of the Home Office room. With one paw, she pulled the leash from his hand and slid it away from him before lying across his lap, tucking herself beneath one of his arms. "Of course not," she replied just as quietly.

He roughed the fur around her shoulders, scratching behind her ears. For a moment, tears prickled hotly behind his eyes, and he rubbed a hand over his face to keep them at bay. "Oh, Christ, Brin, we've put our foot in it now." How could things possibly get so twisted? They'd joined up with those dino-wrangling geeks because it was worlds better than chasing down tweakers and collaring drunks. This wasn't how things were supposed to be. Oh, sure, King of the Nerds had warned him that it could get dangerous, but hell, Danny was a police officer. He was most comfortable in dangerous jobs. Brinley had always called him an adrenalin junkie, and it was fairly true. He loved that rush of being hip-deep in trouble and getting out of it without a scratch. Okay, maybe with a _few_ scratches.

But _this?_ This was FUBAR. How could these people _live_ without dæmons to keep them company and share their minds and hearts? The loneliness had to be excruciating.

She sat up and tucked her muzzle against his neck, licking his cheek; he wrapped arms around her and pressed his face in her fur. He didn't often get so affectionate with his dæmon in a public setting, but fuck it, today put the extenuating in 'extenuating circumstances.' "We'll be okay, Danny," she murmured, leaning against his chest so that her heartbeat was pressed to his.

He sat back and rubbed his face once more. "Yeah. Now, c'mon. Let's get back to the flat and see just how much different things are here." He couldn't call the flat 'home' because it wasn't. It wasn't _their_ home. It belonged to a different Danny Quinn, the Danny Quinn of this timeline, the one without a dæmon. The copper started to rise, but she caught his sleeve in her teeth, halting him.

Brinley drew the leash back towards him with one paw; he'd completely forgotten about it. "Just do it, and we'll get to the flat faster," she sighed heavily.

Danny stroked her ears and picked up the leash, feeling sick as he fastened the collar around her neck. His own throat tightened in response. Most people mistook Brinley for a dog when they first saw her, and it was only upon closer inspection they realised she was a coyote. And in this fucked-up world where nobody else had dæmons, they wouldn't think she was anything other than a wild animal in the streets of London, invariably leading to panic. But if she was collared and leashed, nobody would think she was more than just a normal dog, a _pet._

The word made his stomach turn and his heart wrench.

Grasping the end of the leash in hand, Danny and Brinley left the Home Office. They'd walk back, only because they didn't live too far from here, and he couldn't get on a bus or catch a taxi with her. The cool night air did a little to relieve that persistent nausea, but it wouldn't completely go away until that hated piece of leather and metal was gone from her neck.

Danny wondered how Soldier Boy 1 and 2 were holding up. Ryan had been torn up and down by what Temple and his foul-mouthed Ashildr called a juvenile Gorgonopsid. It'd picked up the Admiral and shaken him like a ragdoll until Hart unloaded a full clip into it and Becker had fired a double-dose of buckshot under its jaw, prompting the creature to drop the other soldier. He was in ICU at St. Anthony's Hospital now, and even though his condition wasn't the best, it wasn't dire, either. Becker had been tossed around a good bit, too, but he could still move under his own steam.

Lester – it was impossible to think of Mr. Posh-Suited Guv without picturing Myranna, his black-furred mink dæmon – had set it up so all the nurses and doctors knew not to remove or touch Landurmilla despite hospital policy about animals. Danny liked the guv a little more for that, because he didn't have to do it. He could've called them all bonkers and made it a living hell. But he hadn't. He'd taken their word at face value and fixed Soldier Boy up so he wouldn't have to be afraid for his own dæmon and could worry more about getting out of hospital.

He didn't have to worry about Temple or Hart. They'd look after each other, and even if they didn't, Danny knew that Ashildr would keep Temple safe. The geek might've been a marshmallow, but that dæmon of his was nothing to take the piss about. Brinley even tread softly around the wolverine, and if his headstrong, unbending, wild Brinley backed off, then he knew that Ashildr meant business. Hart would look after geek-boy, and even if Hart didn't realise it, Temple would look after him, too.

Danny sighed quietly, shaking his head. God, they had such a mess to sort out now. He knew without telling that the next few days, hell, _weeks,_ were going to be very unpleasant.

Brinley gently nudged his leg as they came up the steps of his building. His key still worked, so at least _that_ was the same. "Maybe Patrick and Uriel are still here," she murmured softly; the mention of his lost brother and unsettled dæmon made his chest tighten.

No sooner than he'd shut and locked the door of the flat, he was kneeling on the floor and taking the collar off. Brinley shook herself vigorously, sat, and scratched at her neck as if to physically remove the sensation of it being there. He chucked the loathed thing on the floor but didn't throw it out. As much as it hurt, they'd have to keep it, at least until they found a way back to the proper world.

He swore he'd burn the sodding thing as soon as they were home.


End file.
